, while Brogten was looked on as a low and
stupid fellow, whose company was discreditable, and whose doings were a
disgrace to his old school.

The two presented much the same contrast as was also visible between
Julian and Bruce. While Julian and Lillyston had mutually influenced
each other for good, while they had been growing up together in warm and
honourable friendship, thinking whatsoever things are pure and true and
of good report, the other two had only fostered each other's vanity, and
rather encouraged than checked each other's failings. At school they
were always exchanging the grossest flattery, and the lessons and
tendencies which each had derived from the other's society were lessons
of weakness and sin alone. And now Bruce was looked on at Saint
Werner's as a vain, empty fellow, living on a reputation for cleverness
which he had never justified,--low, dressy, and extravagant, despised by
the reading men, (whose society he affected to avoid), for his weakness
and want of resolution; by the real athletes for his deficiency in
strength and pluck, and by the aristocrats, (whose rooms he most
frequented), for the ill-concealed obscurity of his father's origin, and
the ill-understood source of his wealth. Since he first astonished the
men of his year by the brilliancy of his entertainments and the
gorgeousness of his rooms, he had steadily declined in general
estimation among all whose regard was most really valuable, and he would
have found few among his immense acquaintance who cared as much for
_him_ as they did for his good dinners and recherche wines. Julian, on
the other hand, who knew far fewer men, could count among his new and
old companions some real friends--friends who would cling to him in
adversity as well as in prosperity, and who loved him for his own sake,
whether his fortunes were in sunshine or in cloud. First among these
newly-acquired friends he counted the names of Owen and Kennedy, among
the old ones of Lillyston and De Vayne. But, besides these, he had been
sought out by all the most distinguished men among the Saint Werner's
undergraduates, while Mr Admer, who improved immensely on acquaintance,
had introduced him to some of the most genial and least exclusive dons.
Even Mr Grayson used to address him with something approaching to
warmth, and so high was his general reputation, that he had no
difficulty in making the acquaintance of every man of his college, whom
he in the least